Dalmore Whisky Tasting at InterContinental Melbourne

On our recent trip to Melbourne we had the pleasure of partaking in a rather special Dalmore Whiksy tasting at InterContinental Melbourne’s Market Lane Bar. Market Lane Bar is located in the lobby of InterContinental Melbourne The Rialto and features a whisky menu laden with super rare drams to impress even the most knowledgable whisky connoisseur.

With such a priority placed on whisky, Market Lane Bar offers a fantastic service allowing guests to sample a series of whiskies from a single distiller. On the evening of our tasting Dalmore was selected, a brand that has been producing single malt whisky from as early as 1839 in Scotland’s Highlands. Sitting on the northern shores the distillery is perfectly placed to take advantage of a feast of natural resources including water from Loch Morie and barley from the coastal soil of the Black Isle. Amongst the purists Dalmore is well known for housing some of the world’s oldest whisky stocks and has bottled some of the world’s best drams including the 45YO Dalmore Aurora and 50YO Dalmore Candela.

We sampled Dalmore’s 12YO, 15YO, 18YO and Gran Reserva. Surprisingly the 12YO was as good, if not better than both the 15YO and 18YO which fail to get off the ground completely. The Gran Reserva was introduced to replace Dalmore’s ‘Cigar malt’ after discovering sales we suffering due to the name – people thought it could only be paired with a cigar! The Gran Reserva sits in between the 12YO and the 15YO and posses similar characteristics of orange to that of the 15YO but certainly doesn’t do it as well! It’s great to sit and taste the four whiskies together, comparing notes and aromas and deciding which one’s you like and don’t like. If you’re keen to give Dalmore a whirl my suggestion would be to go for the 12 or 15YO but you won’t beat the value the 12YO has to offer across the board!